Opinion: It Doesn’t Matter What You Think

Gamers like to believe that their opinions matter. Whether it’s ignorance, or simply a blind sense of entitlement, they all like to think that their collective voice means something, that their opinions alone, will transform the landscape of interactive entertainment.

Over the past decade any person with access to the internet could experience first-hand, numerous ‘’uprisings’’ within the confines of countless video-game related discussion boards, YouTube, and a plethora of social networks. Whether the vocal minority was rebelling against an alteration made by a developer within a game, or even the game itself, they’ve more often than not, failed to achieve their ‘’goal’’. And their failure doesn’t usually stem from the fact that in majority, their arguments are irrational, flawed to the core, and simply absurd, but from the fact that a message on the internet, no matter how strong, will not result in any desirable outcome.

An essay on Reddit, whether supported by a handful of people or an entire army of internet keyboard warriors, they will never persuade a developer to divert its course and please the ‘’fans’’ with the changes they desire. And this is because developers, even the ones who put the fans leagues above their personal well being, have no say in what makes the final cut. In fact, some developers are not even able to choose which title they want to create, as they are just one step above the average consumer on the ladder of the interactive entertainment hierarchy. Hierarchy, which is ruthless and unforgiving to anybody who doesn’t wear a suit, and fails to fall in line. A line which in this industry is thin, degraded, and is hanging two meters above a pool full of sharks armed with redundancy, and employment termination forms.

The aforementioned sharks, while circling right underneath the developers waiting for their slightest mistake, are above and beyond them in the hierarchy of this particular industry. They are the grim reapers, they are the difference between the life and death of a studio, but ultimately, just like the developers themselves, ‘’wo/men in suits’’ are nothing more than just puppets in the hands of the conglomerates, who in reality are the ones deciding on which game YOU are going to play.

‘’Everybody’s Got a Price
Everybody’s Got to Pay
Cause the Million Dollar Man
Always Gets His Way’’

The above quote has been spoken, and sung, on numerous occasions, by one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century ‘’The Million Dollar Man’’ Ted DiBiase. And while it can be seen as irrelevant by the battle hardened internet keyboard warriors, it describes the inner workings of the interactive entertainment industry better than any analyst, or any so-called ‘’Vidya Gaem Jurnlist’’.

First line of this particular literary masterpiece states ‘’Everybody’s Got a Price’’, which suggests that any person can be bought. And before you go on a tirade stating that you are the one and true defender of the faith, who is unbending in the face of corruption, you need to remember that in reality, you don’t need to accept anything in order to be bought.

Some members of the vocal minority, who wear the battle scarred armour, full indentations, and jet fuel marks with pride, will over time be persuaded into purchasing the product they hate with waves of pre-order incentives, free in-game content, and last but certainly not least, pre-launch sales. Others, however, who will somehow manage to resists the urge of purchasing the now despised Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, will be literally purchased, in order to ensure they spend their money on the product down the line, or that the next iteration of the franchise will be targeted right at them.

This is done through acquirement and analysis of personal data. And Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has been used in this specific case as Activision, the publisher of the title, is also the owner of the developer King who specialises in collection, and analysis of private data. And you can be sure that sooner or later, King will be used simply to ensure that the next iteration of the Call of Duty franchise will have even wider appeal, simply because, ‘’Everybody’s Got to Pay’’.

Ultimately, I pay, you pay, we all end up paying for the majority of the mainstream games, even if we find portions of them ‘triggering’. And we do so, because we all want to be a part of the big thing, we all want to be able to say ‘’Yeah I’ve played this’’, and even if this sentence is followed by something among the lines of ‘’This is f*&$*!g garbage’’, it is already too late, because you’ve already paid. And by doing so you’ve finally reached the people that matter, and your message wasn’t ‘’I hate this, this is not what we want, things need changing’’, but instead it sounded more like ‘’Just give me any old s&*%e, I’ll lap it up as soon as it’s out’’. Because once your hard earned £40 is processed, and all the investors get their cut, all they think is that they did a great job, because subsequently, despite all the artificial hate, the title has made millions. The truth is that they did a great job, spectacular even.

The vocal minority can hate the industry, conglomerates, publishers, developers, and even themselves, but in truth is, they will always be outplayed by the men and women in charge. And with every coming year this will become more apparent, as with help of companies such as King, and Supercell, corporate giants such as Activision and Tencent, will only further extend their superiority over the average consumer. Because in the end, they will truly know what you want, and they’ll ensure that you’ll pay for it. And the truth is, it doesn’t matter what you think, because they either already know, or they’ll know soon enough. Most likely before their upcoming product hits the shelves, simply to sell few more copies to the members of the triggering who were disliking Infinite Warfare videos en masse. The same way they’ve sold Overwatch loot boxes to the online crusaders who were campaigning against monetization of the in-game content, but in the end have folded faster than a piece of furniture from IKEA, and ended up buying an abundance of the digital packages.